


Songs in Winter

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Narnia References, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy's always been as adventurous as her name-sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Songs in Winter

Lucy sighs when she finally escapes. It's not exactly a melee inside, but there are far, far too many people and all of them want to be first. Lucy's never needed to be first, but she _does_ need air so it's an easy choice to make.

It helps that she's been dying to get out here.

She hasn't been to the mainland often. There's no reason for her to be; staff sergeants aren't something the Athosians need a lot of, and Atlantis does. Lucy's good at her job, and knows it. She has the respect of her peers and her commanding officers. She enjoys most aspects of what she does -- no job is perfect all the time, after all -- and she loves where she lives. Atlantis is a giant toy box of wonders, no matter how many times their hands get bitten when they reach inside. She always wants to go back for more, to see if this is the time she'll find the bottom.

Lucy's always been as adventurous as her name-sake.

As much as she loves Atlantis, though, as much as she knows she'll stay here as long as her superiors allow her to -- it's missing one very important thing.

 _Snow_.

She inhales slowly. The clean bite of cold air is almost enough to explain away the ache in her throat, whorls of ghostly white gusting out as she exhales. Her skin is tight, already drying out and prickling around her eyes, but that's good too. She sighs, but fortunately no one hears it; the air feels dead, muffled in that curious way snow always creates, like every sound is too loud, echoes stolen away. Her nose is frozen. If she stays any longer, she's going to come in red and sniffling, tears of cold leaking from her eyes.

It's perfect.

The others had moaned and complained when they were ferried over, particularly Airman Larson. He's a warm-weather boy, born and raised where the storms are full of raging wind and driving rain, not the hiss of flakes coming down too fast to make out an individual design. Lucy had had to work not to shout with joy, grateful that Major Lorne had wanted her up in the cockpit with him. She thinks it's because she's quiet, and probably because she's pretty, but this is one time she doesn't care about either.

She got to _fly through_ a blizzard. She'd kiss him, if he wants.

It wasn't a huge blizzard, no matter what Larson said -- the Major wouldn't have risked flight if it'd been really serious, no matter how anxious they all were to go -- more like a short squall, twists of wind given form with the unending flakes. Snow had gathered on the outsides of the 'jumper as they flew, soft wreaths Lucy had wanted to ring around her neck. They'd discovered the 'jumper did not have automatic defrosting capabilities and finding that particular toggle had been a fun few minutes. Lucy had helped, of course, but she'd spent most her time staring through glass that fogged, ice crystals forming along the edge, while beneath her the ground mimicked the clouds above them, shifting, uneven shadows that turned brilliant when you looked the right way.

The squall is long past, now. The sky is clear, spangled with more stars than even Lucy, who spent a lot of time in tents and cabins growing up, is used to. Atlantis' constant light makes the sky seem normal despite the unfamiliar configurations. Now it's truly alien: stars so thick they overlap, the clear, cold light interspersed with reds and swirls of greens from giants closer than Earth is used to.

She's never seen the Aurora Borealis. She wonders if that's as beautiful.

A soft crunch makes her look earth-side. The unfamiliar colors in the night sky dye the snow around the building into soft pinks and pale, delicate smudges of green. Traffic lights used to do the same at home, but there the slush was so thick that everything turned gritty and grey in moments. Not here, though. It'll be mud before it's slush, and Lucy likes that just fine.

"Will you slow -- argh!"

She's at attention instantly: just because the settlement is secure doesn't mean it's safe. Besides, she knows that voice. Dr. McKay should be inside, fighting to be first to try Halling's rum, or the huge feast Dr. Weir whipped up out of Lucy doesn't know what, not outside where it's cold and wet and probably pretty hard going. The snow drifts aren't always obvious, and even on the flatter places it's a good two feet deep.

There's more crunching, moving rhythmically closer. It's not Dr. McKay, Lucy knows -- he steps too hard, and the noises are too steady to be his slightly awkward gait. Also, it's getting faster.

"When I find you," Dr. McKay calls. He sounds muffled, like there's something covering his mouth. He sounds wet, too. Cold and exhausted and -- elated? Like he's smiling so broadly his cheeks would hurt, if they weren't already numb from cold. "I am going to make you _pay_ , you immature bastard!" 

Ah. It's Colonel Sheppard, then.

Lucy relaxes, resting her weight on the railing. She can almost see movement in the forest, now: dark shapes that dance around each other to two different sets of music. One is light, graceful, a piccolo's pure tones -- even when Colonel Sheppard trips over a root well hidden by the snow, windmilling face-first into a drift. When he sits back up, he's laughing too hard for Lucy to think of piccolo's anymore, but it's still a lovely sound.

Dr. McKay's music is more percussive, a thundering roll of drums, but there's snare along with the heavy, erratic bass. Lucy has to bite her lip when he finally appears, almost falling on his ass as he carefully edges around a tree-trunk. He's covered in snow. Literally covered, from wet straggles around his hair and face, to thick, caked patties that go from from his waist to his boots. He's fallen several times, Lucy guesses. Any skier recognizes that look, and Lucy is too much of a winter person to miss out on its favorite sport.

"You _asshole_ ," Dr. McKay snarls. He tries to, anyway. Lucy's been stationed around his labs enough to know what a real snarl sounds like, and there's not nearly enough murderous intent or the surprisingly cutting 'bored-now' tone that he uses with equal effect. "You _overgrown two year old!"_

Colonel Sheppard responds by lobbing a snow-ball directly in the doctor's face.

While he splutters, shouting incoherent threats that trigger another cascade of laughter from the Colonel, Lucy's smile loses the gleeful edge, gentling into something different. She's still happy. She has no desire to go back inside, even though her toes are starting to ache from cold and she really wants her winter-weather clothes. She doesn't want to miss anything the two boys -- it's terribly hard to think of them as adults when Dr. McKay trips and falls again, almost disappearing into the same drift the Colonel's still stuck in -- do next. It's more entertaining than anything she's seen in weeks.

It's just, certain realizations shouldn't be made when smiling that way.

Behind her, a burst of applause signals Halling's arrival. Oohs and aahs greet what Lucy suspects is a presentation. Halling acts reserved and formal, and he is, but he's got a sly sense of humor. Doctor Weir says something; the walls are too thick to allow clarity, only the familiar rise and fall of her voice. Lucy listens, but her attention is solely on the pair of men who are still playing in the snow.

She wonders if anyone else knows. She hopes not, only partially for their sake. Lucy likes secrets. She's never felt the need to run and tell her brothers -- not Peter or Edmund, but instead Andrew and Lorin and Benjamin -- anything, not even when she's filled to bursting with it.

Besides. Like Mister Tumnus in the story, who would believe the sight of Colonel Sheppard leaning hard against an uncomfortable tree, one of McKay's hands braced by his head, the other soft against his waist while they kiss like there's nothing left in the whole world?

There are plenty of rumors that the two of them are involved, of course. 

It's just that Lucy's never heard of one where they're in _love_.

Her lips are numb and probably blue with cold. She stays out a little while longer, but when kissing and quiet, unheard murmurs transmute back into a snowball fight, she gives up and goes inside. The heat is physically painful, but Major Lorne -- who is _definitely_ flirting, she decides -- is almost immediately by her side to hand her a cup of rum, heated and fragrant with spices. "You disappeared," he says, grin teasing and kind. "I was going to make sure you had one of the first cups."

She's too frozen to actually taste what she drinks, but it's still heavenly. Spicy and sweet. "I got something else first," she says, and refuses to explain what she means.

Later, when Colonel Sheppard dries off by bear-hugging all the senior staff, and Dr. McKay mocks him, eyes brilliant against the pink of his cheeks, Lucy catches the Major looking at her. And at them. And at her again.

She knows he's going to tell her she's not the first, or maybe that he's definitely the second. Something completely irrelevant. She distracts him with a kiss on the cheek, and then laughs and laughs as it takes him almost twenty minutes to say anything afterward.


End file.
